


The Salt in the Ashes

by InkSplatterM



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Inquisitor Samson AU, Lyrium Withdrawal, M/M, Red Lyrium, Slow Burn Romance, bastardizing some of the game dialouge, more tags as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5258867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSplatterM/pseuds/InkSplatterM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a crisis of conscience, Raleigh Samson finds himself with a glowing mark on his hand, patchier memories than usual, and being lauded as the "Herald of Andraste". </p><p>Bloody fucking perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Raleigh Samson has a Terrible, Awful, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

“’M Lyrium addled, ain’t I? Oughtta expect that I got holes in my memories.” Samson made a sneer, exposing his yellowing teeth. The stone under his knees was cold, a distant feeling of pain that he was thankful for. It was different, more present than the ache in his bones that made it feel like his skin was stretched thin. He could force the pain in his knees and his feet to overwhelm his senses, letting him concentrate on the people flanking him, and the women shoving questions in his face.

They asked things they already knew: “What is your name?” _Raleigh Samson_ “Why are you at the conclave _?” why is any one else here? To see what happens._

And then there were the questions that none of them knew the answer too: “What is this mark on your hand?” _I don’t know_ “How did you survive?” _I don’t remember,_ “Who was the woman?” _fucking Andraste for all I care, I don’t know._

There was a red-head, her hair barely seen under the hood of her cowl, and the other had black hair. Samson vaguely remembered the second as being the same Seeker that had taken Cullen out of Kirkwall a while back. It was almost funny seeing her again. They addressed each other by name: Leliana and Cassandra. Right. That jogged Samso’s memory a bit. The redhead was an agent of the Divine, and yes, Cassandra was that Seeker ho dragged Cullen off. Shit.

A sharp remark was on the tip of his tongue when Cassandra ordered Leliana to the forward camp and pulled Samson to his feet. Alright then, anything had to be better than sitting in a dark Chantry basement. The switch from dimness to sunlight burned Samson’s eyes, a relief from everything else he was feeling. Until he saw the sky.

There was a hole in the sky. A blight-ridden hole in the maker-damned sky, and somehow she thought he was responsible for that? Oh fuck life.

“You don’t honestly think I had anything to do with that.” Samson said, daring to make a second look at it.

“You were the only survivor, the only person we can get answers from. And if you are not involved then you should tell us who was.” Cassandra cut the bonds around Samson’s wrists. “Can I count on you to help with the Breach?”

“Only because I think you’d stab me if I said no.”  

Cassandra made a disgusted noise but led the way forward.

Solas and Varric were interesting characters, to say the least. Samson had met Varric a time or two. First was when he and Hawke had found him while they were searching for that Feyn-whatever kid. The other times were when Samson had managed to scrounge enough coin for both dwarf dust and a pint of the swill that the Hanged Man served. Varric was always holding some sort of court there: trading favors or telling stories that all started with “No shit, there I was”.

Maybe it was the way bad beer mixed with dust-coated memories, but Samson thought that maybe Varric kept an eye on him the times he managed to make it to the Hanged Man. Like he was one more member of the entourage. Sure, an infrequent one, but a person who was there enough so that it was noted. Like someone who could belong if he wanted to join.

It wasn’t as comforting a thought as it maybe should have been.

Solas, though… First Solas needed to let go of his wrist. Now.

Samson tugged his hand back out of the elf’s grip. The glow on his palm was a center of a bright spot of pain that echoed in with the rest of his aches. It felt far too similar to the burn of lyrium withdrawal, but had no sense of what might relieve it. With lyrium, you at least felt thirsty, and could say that you just needed to drink more water, more wine. But the liquid would never be blue enough… or red enough. Not until you got your hands on the real thing. His fingers clenched, claw like, for a moment before releasing.

Solas wore age well, much better than Samson did. Probably the difference between how humans and elves aged. Of course, Samson also had a life that meant he wore his three and forty years like an old and crusty coat. It was easy to be envious of how Solas looked barely half his age, if it weren’t for the ancient, harrowed look in his eyes. Unconsciously, Samson kept himself a good step away from Solas, keeping his guard up. Those eyes pinged at something deep in his fractured memories. Samson didn’t want to look too closely. Any distraction as their group moved forward towards where the Temple of Sacred Ashes used to be would make them demon food. 

On making it to the forward camp, Samson made an easy decision. Chancellor Roderick was a dick. A dick so caught up in minutia that he was sorely missing the bigger picture, such as the fact that the sky was vomiting demons every bloody place. Cassandra evidently felt the same, given how she was just a step away from getting into the Chancellor’s face. Samson could almost like her for that, even if she had been dragging him around as a prisoner.

His hand burst with light again, fire racing up his arm, and echoing the pulse from the Breach in the sky. Bloody wonderful. He needed a drink. “Listen,” Samson said, interrupting whatever argument was going on between Leliana, Cassandra, and Roderick. He hadn’t exactly been paying attention. “You want me to live long enough to get to your precious trial, right? But first we need to get that thing in the sky under control, then we can worry about which prison I need to stand the rest of my life in. We take the mountain pass. As Sister Leliana there said, it’ll be safer, and maybe we can even find those scouts, or what’s left of them.”

Cassandra looked like she wanted to argue. It was for naught, though, as she nodded and lead the way up to the high mine shafts that lead to the mountain pass. Going through the passages with demons and Chantry symbols everywhere was eerie. He wouldn’t have been surprised if one of the pale wraiths started singing some blighted version of the Chant of Light. There already was an odd song in the air. Every step seemed to make it louder by fractions.Samson couldn’t pin point where exactly it was coming from, and he wasn’t going to draw attention to the fact that he was hearing it. Cassandra, Varric, and Solas didn’t make a comment on it.It was just his mind playing tricks, had to be. It had to be.

There was another rift at the end of the path, and the majority of the missing scouts. They all gave Samson looks like they couldn’t believe that he was there. Or was it at the fact that he closed the rift. Either way, the awed looks being directed at him, as if he were someone miraculous, was more than he could really bear. He rolled off the thanks the lead scout gave him with a shrug.

“We need to keep moving. Right?” Samson said, raising an eyebrow at Cassandra. She had been the one urging them forward the rest of the time after all. Yet, she was standing shocked still as the scouts took the path they had just left. Samson gestured to the forward path “Right?”

“Yes, the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes is just over the ridge.”

The song he was hearing kept getting louder. Samson shook his head with a wince. Maybe the others thought it was at the first of the mummified bodies that were still standing where they died. It would be easier if they thought that. The air sat thick in his mouth as if it was coated with ash.

Thirsty. Thirst that could only be quenched by the red…

“You alright there, Samson?” Varric said, standing at his side. When had he moved?

“Yeah. M’fine. Just.” Samson gestured out with his arm, trying to encompass the crater with a single movement. “All that.” He prayed that Varric would let that be enough of a reason for why Samson had begun to slump to the side. Varric looked up at him, brows heavy over his gaze. For a moment there, Samson thought Varric would say something, but the dwarf didn’t, instead pushing Samson’s weight back on his own feet.

“Same.”

They turned a corner. The Sound of Leliana and her troops coming up behind them was drowned out by the song. It didn’t push against his mind, but it echoed off his bones, within his bones. And there was red everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. He could take some shavings and make it into a syrup  and quaff it down for days.

“You know this is red lyrium seeker… Don’t touch it, it’s evil.” Varric said. His voice was distant. Samson barely registered it as he forced his feet to keep moving. Move past it. He’d get some later. He could come back, it was all right here and then he’d drink it down. He’d push the syrup past the ash in his mouth, feel whole again, and not like his mind was about to take a dive off of one of Kirkwall’s cliffs.

Solas put a hand on his arm.

Samson just about jumped out of his skin, a hand on the hilt of a sword he picked up off a dead body along the way. They stared at each other a long moment. Samson’s bloodshot eyes couldn’t hold the gaze, moving instead to the nearest spike of red lyrium and back to Solas’ face.

_Now is the hour of our Victory._

Everyone looked up as a voice echoed through the crater. It was fathomless in sound; ancient in a way that frightened you to your bones instead of awing you. As one, the group ran forward down into the crater where the rift powering the breach was.

_Someone, help me!_

The Divine’s voice. She was scared, helpless, desperate for a savior that she could not see coming for her.

“What is this? What are we hearing?” Cassandra’s question was distant to Samson’s ears, as was Solas’s response about the fade and bleeding. When they made it to the center of the crater, the rift there burst into light, showing the scene of what had happened. The tall shadowy figure, again saying “Now is the hour of our Victory.” Again the Divine pleading “Someone, help me.”

But there was a new addition. Samson’s voice, “… Shit.” As he stepped into the presentation.”

The shadowman growled. “You!” He, It, lifted a gnarled clawed finger and pointed it at the scene Samson. “Kill him!”

“You were there!” Cassandra sounding like she didn’t know if she wanted to start interrogating Samson again, or if she wanted to interrogate the scene provided by the Fade. “The Divine is she…?”

“I don’t know.” Samson said. Cassandra gave him a look as if she hadn’t heard him. “I said, I don’t know! I don’t know anything.”

In any other situation, Samson would be thankful for the way that Solas distracted Cassandra with the reminder that they needed to seal this rift. He’d remember to morrow to do something nice for him, or something. Would all depend on if they survived.

First it needed to be opened, again. Then sealed. Which would mean demons. And, wouldn’t you know it, but what came out was a nasty looking Pride demon. Bloody wonderful.


	2. In Which Samson Becomes the Herald of Andraste, Much to His Chagrin

In terms of waking up in strange places, being in a bed was one of the better outcomes.

Waking up to being the object of a sudden amount of scrutiny and worship? Well… that was not something Samson expected.

“You know,” he said, finally getting out of the throng and into the office at the back of Haven’s Chantry, “When I said that the woman was Andraste, I was being fucking sarcastic. Really, really sarcastic.”

Oh, was that Chancellor Roderick sputtering in the corner?

The look of utter contempt and confusion was too funny. Especially when the guards in Templar armor listened to Cassandra’s orders over Roderick’s. That was only the start of Cassandra’s speech, though. Her support was surprising to say the least. The fact that the Divine wanted to start the Inquisition again, bringing to life a relic that had been ashes in the wind, was as flabbergasting to Samson as being countermanded was to Roderick.

“I agreed to help you with that thing in the sky, and it almost killed me.” Samson leaned his hip against the table as he spoke. A certain sort of wretchedness was in his bones. Whatever reserves of energy that being asleep had given him, they were gone now. He was… thirsty. What could quench it was a long walk away, but he could get back to the crater, back to the red. “Why, in all the Void taken world, would I want to continue to help you?”

“Because we are the only people in all of Thedas that don’t believe you killed the Divine,“ said Leliana, her voice bland as she rested her hands on the table. “Any settlement outside of Haven would kill you on the spot.”

“Maybe that’s what I-“

“We also have a steady supply of lyrium.”

Right. They knew he was a burnt out Templar, kicked from the Order with nothing but the clothing on his back and a need for lyrium that scorched his throat every minute. He brought up a hand to tell her off, but the words stopped in his mouth. Samson’s hand was shaking in a fine, far too noticeable, tremor.

Well. Shit.

“I don’t need it.” They would give him the blue lyrium, when all he needed, all he wanted, was the red. “I don’t want it.” Liar. They knew it.

“Will you stay? Help us close the Breach, help us restore order to Thedas? With that mark on your hand, you are the only one who can.”

A pounding, barely noticeable through everything else, made itself better known in Samson’s skull. It sounded like a thousand swords beating on a thousand shields.

_The Red Storm will rise!_

The words rang in his mind, echoing in all the places where the need for Lyrium was burning out his brain. Both women looked at him. Cassandra’s face had a guarded hope, while Leliana was inscrutable. The Red Storm. What was the Red Storm? The memory stayed just at the edge of a blank spot that, perhaps, also had held the events of the chantry. The red storm… Whatever it was, the red storm would rise with out him. Perhaps it was better that way.

“Fine. I’ll stay.”

Samson finally managed to escape the clutches of the Inquisition’s other advisors at noon the next day. He was now outfitted as “befitted” his “station”. Never mind that his station was something that he didn’t want to occupy in the first place. That had caused great consternation for Josephine, who had been poised to let the noble guests know that the “Herald of Andraste” was ready and willing to fight for the right. It seemed like he had to start every conversation with “I’m not the Herald of any one, or anything, but myself. And for fucks sake why do we even want to continue bothering with the Chantry?”

Every time he was met with Josephine Montilyat, the Inquisition’s chief diplomat, demonstrating her mastery of her chosen field, given that she could bring him around, however grudgingly. “We need as many allies as possible, Ser Samson. The Chantry is an institution within almost every major nation in Thedas. If we are to do as we claim, we need to begin by reminding the world of that commonality,” she would say, quill poised above her notes, and always with a smile. The smile did Samson in as much as what she actually said, the strength of her belief; that words, niceties, commonalities, truly would bring people together and in support of the Inquisition, resided in that smile. Samson would end up managing to grumble back that she could drop the title. He was just ‘Samson.’

“You know, I thought it was a trick of the light earlier, but your eyes are really bloodshot.” Varric’s voice broke through the fog in Samson’s head.

“What?”

“Your eyes are red. You holding up okay?”

There were many ways that Samson could answer that question, each of them with varying levels of truth. It didn’t help that Samson could barely string together anything resembling a coherent thought. It was all Red Storms and red lyrium, and his skin feeling like it was five sizes too small. Every glance that this… Inquisitorial advisory board sent his way was a silent condemnation.

And Cullen, “Commander of the Inquisition’s Forces”, oh what a lark. Samson had wanted to punch Cullen’s smug little face, blind that knowing look.

“I dunno what I’m doing anymore, or where this whole shit show is going to end up.”

“So what do you know?”

“That I want to hit Cullen. Repeatedly.”

Varric gave a chuckle at that. “Everyone has wanted to do that at one point or another. Try again, Greasy.”

It was hard to think. Pain attached to Samson’s bones like so many grasping claws. What did he know? He knew the Chantry, he knew how it operated, how it’s people worked. He knew that the kept capitulating to Josephine because she was far too right about how the Chantry was a point of commonality for nearly every nation in Thedas, and how if the Inquisition hoped to survive as an international thing, then it would need to have the Chantry as an inroad to all the disparate countries and city-states.

“It’s a stupid idea, sucking up to people that have told you to fuck off. But if Seeker Cassandra’s plan is to work even in part, then they need the Chantry, and no doubt there are quite a few in the Chantry that know this. Unless all the Grand Clerics with any political sense died in the Conclave.” Samson finally said, picking out each word carefully.

“’They’? Why not “we”?”

“I’m not really part of all this. Just the figurehead that they need to look legitimate. I’d say I’m the face, but I’m not pretty like Cullen is.”

Varric laughed again, making a nod with his head like he was putting a quote to memory for later use. “The man the Inquisition needs, but not who it deserves, going from Thedas’ most wanted criminal to joining the armies of the faithful in less than an hour.”

“Please. I’m just as self-centered as anyone else. I get to keep my life this way.”

There was a long moment where a sober expression crossed Varric’s face. It was odd. Vulnerable, in such a way that Samson felt uncomfortable to have seen it. Now it was Varric’s turn to carefully choose his own words. “You know, you might be able to figure out where you’re going if you stay on with the Inquisition.”

“Really? Is that why you stayed? Needed a direction after everything?”

“Ehh… Not really. More like…” Varric shook his head, his arms crossing in front of his broad chest. “Look. Back in Kirkwall, I had friends who were mages and drinking buddies who were Templars. Anything that happened between them? Not my problem. I can’t help but thinking that Kirkwall may have gone a little differently if I had made it my problem. So here I am, making a hole in the sky my problem, even it it’ll take a miracle to solve.”

It was far more honest an answer than Samson expected. He had anticipated a dodge; silver-tongued words from a master liar and wordsmith to get around the nasty emotional and mental traps that the question could have set off. Instead, what he had gotten was something that felt like a truth. Perhaps not the whole truth, that would truly have been a stretch, but enough of it that the sincerity in Varric’s voice was a physical weight.

Footsteps, near soundless on the snowy dirt came up behind them. “A miricle which we might be in place to provide,” said Solas. “If I may, Varric, I have a need to borrow the Herald.”

“Oh for shit’s sake, not you too.” Samson said following Solas and giving Varric a parting wave. Solas was fast when he wanted to be. “Look, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: I am the herald of no one, and nothing, but myself.”

“Scoff if you want, but the people here, soldiers for the Inquisition and pilgrims both, need a hero. You are the only one qualified to be that hero in this moment.”

Samsom sighed and scratched the back of his head. “A lyrium addled ex-Templar isn’t who you want or need riding in on a griffon. I’m not who they want me to be, not when they could find someone better.” Someone like Cullen, for example. Blonde with chiseled features, and just enough faults and scars to make an otherwise common face interesting. Someone whole, handsome, wholesome.

Solas raised both his eyebrows at Samson – surprised perhaps? – but said nothing.

They continued to walk up the path. It wasn’t until the ringing in Samson’s ears coalesced into song that he realized that they were walking back up to the crater.

Red. Red. Red. The Red Storm. The Red that he needed like a drowning man needed air, or a starving one food. Here it was and it would only take a minute…

“How long has it been since you last taken lyrium?”

Soals’ question cut across Samson’s thoughts like a hot knife. It was less a question, more of a command. He needed to answer, even as the words felt like they were being pulled from behind his teeth. “Before the Conclave explosion.”

“I see. And what makes you an ‘ex-Templar’? did you leave the order, as Cullen did?”

“No. Kicked out. There was a difference in ideologies, you could say. Why…?” Samson’s gaze caught the brightness of the lyrium. It all seemed to glow with it’s own light made from malevolence and temptation. It would take only just a little, just a little.

Solas ignored Samson’s attempt at a question. “You’re hardly an “ex” anything, given that you are still bound by your Order’s leash.”

“The fuck you mean by that?”

“Lyrium. You are a willing slave to it.”

“No.” A snarl ripped out of Samson’s throat. How in the Black City could Solas even think for a minute that he wanted this to be his life. Did this knife-ear think that he knew Samson inside and out after only known each other for barely a few hours? Samson scrubbed his face with a hand. Now he couldn’t deny that he was stressed, having a thought like that in his head. He wasn’t worth anything good, but he was better than that, to even think the slur. “The Chantry, the Templar Order, they made me need it. I had no choice in it.”

“Yes. But you are still enslaved by it. You can choose not to be. I believe that you could be up to the task before you now.” A small flame glowed in Solas’ palm, the same color as blue lyrium sitting in a vial. “Here. Perform a cleanse.”

“I need lyrium.”

“No, you do not. Perform a cleanse.”

It was hard to focus. The song of the red lyrium all around him grew more intense by the second, as if responding to Samson’s attempt to bolster his will. Slowly, though, he felt that same centeredness with the world that heralded the use of a Tempalr’s ability to suppress magic. He pushed that feeling outward.

The fire glinted out.

Solas shook his palm as if it felt numb. Perhaps it did. Samson almost fell to his knees, from exhaustion or exertion he couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter. He just… did the impossible. No lyrium in his system, and yet… And yet.

“See. You don’t need it to be a Templar, and you don’t need it to be a person. You can let the leash drop.”

“Maybe… maybe.”


	3. In Which the Advisory Board of the Inquisition Discusses the Reluctant Herald

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted two days later than I wanted, but here we go!

Cassandra realized quite soon into her formal acquaintance with Raleigh Samson that he did not like her. Somehow, the feeling was both mutual and not. She did not like that he presented himself as a self serving individual, and it grated on her that Samson seemed to hate even the concept of the Chantry. At the same time, she could not blame him for his feelings. When she had interrogated Varric, Samson was a minor character in the story he presented, with only the minimum amount of information to go on. But he was still a figure of sympathy, or at least pity. A Templar forced to leave the Templar Order. No matter the circumstances of the parting, to have someone go through lyrium withdrawal when they weren’t hardened to the pain it would bring? Cassandra wished that on no person. Besides, Samson, to all appearances, had given his life to the Order and to the Chantry before both turned their backs on him. It would only make sense that he would dislike them with a passion in return.

The marks of lyrium withdrawal were harsh on Samson’s face, and everyone had heard his screaming nightmares that one night, before the Inquisition made for the Crossroads in the Ferelden Hinterlands. They should have made his face seem unwelcoming. He was haunted and haggard, yet compelling. His struggle was obvious, and made him approachable for all his exalted status. That was why Cassandra put her support to his decisions, even if she personally did not like what he chose. It also helped that, despite being ruder than a port rat, he was always bluntly sincere.

“Is that supposed to be me?”

Cassandra paused her blow just at the neck of the training dummy. “Perhaps,” she said, turning towards Samson. “Depends on if you have made any of the clerics angry again.”

“I have.”

“Then of course it is you.”

“Going to need to make those things out of iron soon.”

There isn’t enough inflection in Samson’s voice, so Cassandra doesn’t know if he is teasing her, or if she really should see about talking to Quartermaster Threnn and Josephine about the cost of making iron training dummies. It hits her though that this isn’t the first time that she’s heard the same non-tone in Samson’s voice.

Val Royoux.

Knight Commander Lucius had called Samson a ‘Traitor’. His exact words to her had been: “You have shown me nothing. And the Inquisition, with it’s traitor Herald, less than nothing”.

Cassandra picked at the cloth on the hilt of her sword. “Samson, are you a traitor?”

“Depends on how you look at it.”

“How do you see it?”

“Not how you do.”

“And how do you know what I think?”

“I know how people like us think. And the screws we put to ourselves to justify what we do.”

“I see.” She did, but she also didn’t. What had it been then, to make Samson a traitor to his Order? There were too many unanswered questions, and the only man with answers was not going to speak to her about them.

-*~-*~-*~-*~

Leliana prays everyday. Sometimes it is a prayer in the common and small things: the contemplation of a solitary rose, loosing an arrow. Other times her prayer is far more formalized; speaking the Chant of Light to beseech the Maker, rather than making an offering of faith.

“Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just.” The Inquisition was made to be peacekeepers. They were blessed, because they were going to bring the needed peace between the mages, the Templars, and the innocents caught in the crossfire. “Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.” They would bring justice where there was none. In doing so, the Inquisition was righteous, they were the lights holding back the shadow, combating those shadows with the only thing that could damage them, hope. They had to be. Otherwise, Justinia’s death would have truly been for nothing. “In their blood the Maker’s will is written. Is that want you want from us? Blood? To die so that your will is done? Is death your only blessing?”

“Seems like.”

Leliana didn’t turn to face Samson, but she stood, running her hands down the chainmail of her armor. “And you believe that?”

“I don’t believe in anything. Not anymore.”

“Lucky. Especially since Justinia gave the Maker everything he demanded of her, and still let her die. If he doesn’t intervene to save the best of his servants, then what good is he?”

“So find a new god.”

That forced Leliana to turn and face Samson head on. What he suggested was impossible. Utterly impossible. There were no gods other than the Maker. Andraste was worshipped, but she was not a goddess, only chosen. Anger gripped her heart, rising in defense of the last thing she held dear to her being so casually brushed aside “What?”

“Find a new god.” Samson’s voice was as casual as his stance as he leaned against the tent post. “If the one that you worship now isn’t doing anything for you, find someone new.”

“Are you going to suggest yourself?”

“Fuck no. But if you find someone worth it, let me know. In the meantime… I need a favor.”

An incredulous eyebrow raised, and Leliana crossed her arms, waiting for Samson to continue. There was a beat of silence, where he looked more and more uncomfortable.

“I…” He sighed, weary and world worn. “I have a friend I need you to find. I wrote down everything that I could remember. If you do this, you don’t have to pay me to be here.” He passed over a folded piece of paper, Leliana recognized the make as being from Varric’s belongings. Mission evidently complete, Samson turned around, only to pause at the opening of the tent.

“You know, it’s alright to grieve for someone you love, and rage at the injustice of her death. You don’t have to be composed all the time.”

“I’ll have my people search for your friend. Please, leave.”

She looked at the information once Samson left. Hmm. A Tranquil friend? Interesting.

-*~-*~-*~-*~-*~

As Samson’s fist sunk into his stomach Cullen remembered two things that he shouldn’t have forgotten. The first was that Samson had been a top contender for the Knight-Captain position in the Gallows. Under any Knight-Commander who was not Meredith Stannard, Samson would have had the post. He had been well respected by both the mages and the Templars, and had a reputation for fair treatment. Of course, there were a few hard-line Templars – Karras, Otto, Arlik, Cullen himself – who had thought that Samson was soft on the mages. 

The second, was that Samson had been known to be one of the better combatants in the Gallows. His emaciated body did not hinder his skill.

“C’mon Cully, you’re the one who said ‘no holds barred’. Don’t tell me that one blow is enough to take down the ‘great commander’.” Samson said, backing up a step even as his yellow teeth gleamed in a fierce smile. Right, no holds barred. Even so samson was giving him time to recover. Why?

Cullen straightened, pulling momentum into another swing of his sword. A feint, but Samson pulled away from it, seeing through it and managing to pin Cullen’s sword to the ground. He kicked Cullen on the chin, forcing him flat on his back.

Cullen tried to sit up. Cold metal slid against his neck.

“Yield?”  

Cullen bared his teeth at Samson’s question. Humiliation worried at his neck, heating his face. It was like the first time that they had sparred at the Gallows. yet... is much was different. They used blunted practice swords then, instead of live steel. Cullen had been the man with the lean and hungry look, lost in rage and trauma. there had been more rules in the Order, over where they were allowed to hit, rather than the free for all brawl this turned into. Either way, it still ended with Cullen flat on his back and a weapon at his throat.

“Yes.”

The blade was taken away, and Samson offered a hand. Last time, Cullen had batted it away. Now, though giving it a dubious look, he accepted the offered help and pulled himself to his feet.

Help. It was a rare thing, especially between them. After that first spar in the Gallows, Samson stopped trying, and Cullen convinced himself that he didn’t need it anyway. Now though…

It was too easy to remember the look on the elven servant’s face when she burst into his quarters shouting frantically that the commander had to help, please, he’s screaming. To easy to see Samson sitting up in bed screaming in pain and trying to tear his skin off, nearly succeeding in a few places on his arms and chest.

It wasn’t a nightmare.

Cullen told everyone, once he had managed to get Samson to stop screaming and clawing at himself, that it was a nightmare, just a nightmare, everything is alright, I promise.

Cullen still didn’t know why he did that.

-*~-*~-*~-*~-*~

Josephine was in a quandary. She needed an answer from Ser Samson about being the Herald, the nobles she contacted so far were clamoring for information on him. Any information. Even false information. This all needed to be corrected, but she was loathe to say anything that wasn’t verified by Ser Samson himself.

She stepped out of the room set aside as her office, only to nearly walk smack into the object of her search.

Samson was standing with his arms crossed, looming over Mother Giselle. There was a moment where Josephine thought of intervening. Mother Giselle, for all her strength of character, was not trained in any sort of combat. And Ser Samson was a Templar. The Chantry trained some of the most skilled fighters in all of Thedas.

Ser Samson’s voice was a hiss from behind his teeth. “If I ever see you talking to one of the Tranquil again, I swear that it will be the last time you speak. And never, ever, speak of tranquility as if it’s something they voluntarily wanted. It’s not a choice, or a burden _asked_ to be held, when your only alternative is death. Those that chose to be Tranquil were desperate, and those that didn’t were scared out of their minds and cowed into it. That’s not even getting into the abuses at Kirkwall.”

“I was only attempting to be sympathetic.” Mother Giselle had a spine made of hardened steel. She was not bending under Ser Samson’s intimidation, even while she was attempting to calm him down.

“That wasn’t sympathy, that was pity. Just treat them like you would anyone else, talk to them like you would anyone else. They’re not without brains.”

“Talk with them,” Josephine almost giggled at how Mother Giselle sounded like a cat with cream. “Did you not just say I was not allowed that?”

Ser Samson made a helpless gesture, lips pulling up from his teeth in a grimace. Oh, Josie knew that look, ‘you are being too logical for my current emotional state’. Time to step in.

“There you are, Ser Samson. I need you for just a moment.” Josephine said, steering his attention to her. “I’m sure Mother Giselle won’t mind if I borrow you from your discussion.”

“No ‘Ser’, I’m not a Templar. I don’t have any titles.”

“But then I’ll have to call you ‘the Herald’.”

“I can’t win today.

**Author's Note:**

> A supreme amount of thanks go to my dear friends Haley and [lafillechanceuse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lafillechanceuse/pseuds/lafillechanceuse) for putting up with me using them as soundboards and asking the hard questions.


End file.
